Chapter 17
It feels good to be out of the house.
Which is crazy, because we’ve just mortgaged ourselves to the hilt to buy it, sunk all our savings into it too.
We spent six months searching for a dream home, and another six waiting for the chain to complete, for the paperwork to go through—but it still feels like someone else’s property.
Like it is still full of old ghosts waiting to be exorcised.
Full of old questions that don’t yet have answers.
Perhaps I could answer one of those questions today.
There is no answer.
I wait before trying the doorbell again, then tap the metal letterbox, flapping it noisily for good measure.
But still no one comes to the door. It is the middle of the morning—I guess the owners are out at work.
I stand there for another hopeful minute before returning to my car, hunting around in the glove compartment for a pen and paper.
I’m just scribbling my mobile number at the bottom of the note when a small red Peugeot slows next to me and turns carefully into the drive of number 167, suspension squeaking audibly as it bumps up the curb.
A woman gets out of the driver’s side and goes around to the boot, lifting out two bulging bags of shopping.
She’s around fifty, in dungarees and trainers, with flushed cheeks and brown hair tied back in an unfussy ponytail.
Leaving the boot open, she takes the shopping and walks to the house next door where the door has already been opened by an elderly man in slippers, leaning on a walking stick. She disappears inside.
A few minutes later, she emerges empty-handed and takes the remaining two bags of shopping from the Peugeot, going into number 167 and nudging the front door shut with her foot.
I give her a minute then follow, ringing the doorbell for the third time in ten minutes.
This time I can see the shape of movement through the frosted glass as she approaches, already talking as she pulls open the door.
“I’ve told you, Bill, I was doing a shop anyway and I’m not taking any extra money for—”
She sees me, and stops.
“Hi,” I say, holding a hand up in greeting. “Sorry to drop in on you like this.”
“Oh,” she says. “Thought you were the neighbor.”
“Have you got a minute?”
The smile fades from her face. “I was just unpacking the shopping, then I’ve got some other things to be getting on with before I pick my son up.”
“It really won’t take—”
“And I don’t buy on the doorstep, but you can leave a leaflet if you want.”
“I’m not selling anything,” I say. “I just wanted to talk to you about your dog.”
She starts to push the door shut. “Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong house, love. I don’t have a dog.”
“I found his collar.” I raise the plastic bag. “Was passing by today and I thought I’d drop it around to you.”
“Like I said,” she repeats, “I don’t have a dog. Haven’t had one for years.”
I feel a little tug of disappointment at her certainty, the bubble of hope deflating.
“Do you mind if I ask how long you’ve lived at this address?”
She leans around to see if there’s anyone else on the drive behind me.
“Is this some sort of prank?”
“It might be that the dog belonged to a previous—”
“Not sure it’s any of your business how long I’ve been here.” She moves to push the door all the way shut. “Sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“His name was Woody.” I take the collar out of the plastic bag and hold out the tag to show her. “The dog. I found the collar at my house and I was curious to know how it ended up there.”
For a second, I think she’s going to slam the door in my face but instead she stops, her mouth slightly open, eyes settling on the worn black leather collar.
A trio of frown lines deepen on her forehead as she reaches out a tentative hand to touch the dull silver disc of the name tag.
She turns it this way and that, reading the handful of letters and numbers, her thumb rubbing the rough lines of engraving etched into the metal.
All the color has drained from her cheeks.
“Where?” she says finally, taking the collar in both hands now. “Where did you find this?”
I repeat what I said about finding it at my house, giving her the street name without going into too many other details.
She looks up from the collar and finds my eyes, and then she pulls open the front door, showing me into a short hallway with stairs on the right and a small, neat kitchen at the end.
Gesturing toward another open door on the left, she ushers me into a lounge, sparsely furnished in shades of beige and dark brown.
She gestures for me to take a seat on a sofa by the window.
I’m half expecting a dog to trot into the room and give me a good checking over.
But the house is silent and still; it feels empty apart from the two of us.
She hovers by the door, as if still not quite sure whether to trust me, the collar clutched in both hands.
“Would you like a drink?” she says. “Tea?”
“No, thank you.”
“I’m Maxine, by the way. Most people call me Max.”
“Adam,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”
She moves a little further into the room, seeming to come to a decision.
“Woody was my husband’s dog,” she says at last. “At least, at first. Adrian was the one who got him from the rescue place, who brought him out of his shell, trained him.” She stops, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, this is all a bit of a shock coming so out of the blue.”
She lays the collar carefully on the sofa and takes a black-framed picture from the mantelpiece, handing it to me.
It’s a countryside shot of a slight, bespectacled man in a green anorak, with a kind, open face.
His hand is laid affectionately on the head of a scrappy, caramel-colored cross-breed with its tongue hanging out; the dog looks as if it is smiling.
“We got Woody from a rescue kennel when he was already two or three, they didn’t quite know how old he was but they knew he’d been horribly mistreated.
Took him a week to come out from behind the sofa, a month before he’d let anyone stroke him.
He was just frightened of everyone, and everything.
But not nasty with it, just petrified. Adrian brought him around.
We both loved him. But I never thought…” She sits down on the armchair.
I notice for the first time that she wears a gold band on the fourth finger of her right hand, not her left.
The only other jewelry she wears is a plain silver necklace, one hand now sliding a locket along the chain.
“Never thought I’d end up looking after that dog on my own. ”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just brings it all back, you know?”
“Your husband…?” I let the question hang in the air, trying to think of a delicate way of phrasing it. “You’re not… together anymore?”
“No.” She looks at the other pictures lined up on the mantelpiece. “No, we’re not together. I’ve not seen Adrian in more than twenty years.”